Posted by Karl Zimmerman, Last modified by Karl Zimmerman on 21 February 2019 02:38 PM

With our Windows Dedicated Servers most clients manage things over remote desktop protocol (RDP) and we're often asked about using multiple monitors with RDP.

Default settings for connecting to a remote server are typically fine for most users, but those who require multiple monitors for their sessions, such as traders or system administrators, may need to configure RDP to use multiple monitors in their remote sessions.

Reconfiguring remote desktop protocol (RDP) for this is simple and can be done in one of two ways.

The first method is directly through the RDP interface. Open the Remote Desktop and click the "Options" button on the bottom left-hand corner of the window. Click on the "Display" tab and tick the checkbox that reads "Use all my monitors for the remote session" Once this is selected, you can then click "Connect" and proceed with connecting to the server as normal. If you would like this to be the default behavior for RDP, click on the "General" tab and click "Save" before connecting to your remote server.

Alternatively, you can launch RDP from the command line and specify the multimon flag:

mstsc.exe -multimon

Launching RDP in this manner will auto-check the "Use all my monitors for the remote session" box and allow you to bypass the previous steps.

Support for multiple monitors is available when connecting from any Windows 7/8.1/10 computer, however, there are restrictions when connecting to a computer using multi-monitor mode. When connecting to Windows 7 computers, only computers that are running Windows 7 Enterprise or Ultimate can be connected to in multi-monitor mode. When connecting to Windows 8.1, only computers that are running Windows 8.1 Professional or Enterprise can be connected to in multi-monitor mode. Both Standard and Datacenter editions of Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2012, & Windows Server 2016 support multi-monitor mode.

Multi-monitor mode supports up to 16 monitors, with a maximum resolution of 4096 x 2048 per monitor.